Agency partners with online auction firm to sell tenanted properties

Lettings agency IPS Estates is partnering with Midlands auction specialist SDL Auctions to sell tenanted properties online.

IPS Estates, based in Derbyshire, will sell properties through online auction on its own website, through the SDL Auctions website and on portals.

“The perfect route to market for tenanted properties” is how it is described by the director of IPS Estates, Richard Jones; he says IPS has a lot of investment sales properties in its portfolio and feels the conventional way of selling them was not always appropriate for buy to let investors.

“The first place people look now is online. Five years ago only one per cent of properties were sold through online auction, this year it was five per cent and that’s forecast to grow to 10 per cent over the next 10 years. The online method is only going to get bigger, better and adapt to improving methods of disposal” he adds.

The auctions, which will see properties listed for free with zero per cent commission to the seller, will start to go live in the next two weeks.  

“Selling through the traditional private treaty route, you usually sell with vacant possession because that’s what buyers require. This way’s great because you don’t have to evict the tenant. By selling through auction the property is showcased in a live online auction where buyers are more used to having tenants in a property. This was a big attraction for us because we have a lot of tenanted properties” according to Jones.

SDL Auctions is one of the UK’s largest auction businesses and in 2017 raised over £165m for vendors. 

It was established following the SDL Group’s acquisition of the CPBigwood, Graham Penny Auctions and Humphreys of Chester auction businesses in 2016.